Wen Ho Lee Says Race Played Part

Published 8:00 pm, Wednesday, January 9, 2002

Wen Ho Lee, the nuclear scientist who pleaded guilty to mishandling restricted nuclear weapons data, says he doubts he would have been prosecuted if he was white.

Taiwanese-born Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was never charged with espionage. Asian-American groups believe he was arrested at least partly because of his Chinese ancestry. The government has denied it engaged in any racial profiling.

"I think if I'm Caucasian, I probably would not be a scapegoat," Lee said in an interview with NBC News, scheduled to air next week.

Lee said the materials he was charged with compiling on tape and unsecure computer files at Los Alamos National Laboratory were far from the core national security secrets federal prosecutors contended they were. At least one scientist had called them "the crown jewels" of American science.

"I can tell you, they are not core secrets. Some of them are garbage," Lee said, according to an NBC news release on the interview.

The interview is scheduled to be broadcast Tuesday on "Today" and "Nightly News."

On July 13, 1999, Lee pleaded guilty to a single count involving the unsecure downloading of data files to one computer tape; 58 counts were dismissed and Lee was freed by a judge, who apologized for keeping him jailed nine months without bail.

"I want the American people to know someone in the government has done something very damaging to me," Lee said. "I don't want this to happen to anybody again. I don't know who did this to me and I don't know why."

Lee has begun a series of interviews promoting his book, "My Country vs. Me," co-authored by Helen Zia.